


Can't Hardly Wait Challenge

by the_bloss



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: And smut!, Fanart, Friggin' Fluff, M/M, Now with angst!, can't hardly wait challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:19:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6900175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_bloss/pseuds/the_bloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of art and fic centered on the time between Graduation and Jack's visit to Madison. Part of the Can't Hardly Wait Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of my attempt to force myself to produce some fanwork!!! Enjoy!

thinkin'_'bout_the_bae.png

No but for real, this was probably the best/worst, longest/shortest plane ride of Bitty's life.


	2. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first Skype call.

Jack’s thumb hovers over the Send button, one word queued up in the message box: _Skype?_

It’s not the first text he’s sent; no, there’s now a whole message history that Jack might have already scrolled through a few times, rereading the exchange with a kind of grin that made his papa smile slyly in return.

But this feels different. It’s like a next step, isn’t it? Should he have more preamble than just a one-word request? Jack’s leg bounces. Crisse, he’s bad at texting. This is why he needs face-to-face. Not that he’s much better at that. He presses send. Bitty will understand.

He stares his phone down, waiting for a response, but it comes in the form of his Skype ringtone chiming through his mostly empty Providence bedroom. Well.

Settling on the bed, laptop on his thighs, Jack makes a fruitless attempt to fix his hair before accepting the call. When Bitty’s wide smile fills the screen, Jack lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Hi.”

“Hey, yourself.” Bitty responds, easy grin still in place. “So…”

Jack allows himself a moment to just take Bitty in. He seems giddy, happy. That’s…good. “So. We…have some things to talk about?”

A laugh burbles out of Bitty. God, that laugh. “I should say so, Mr. Zimmermann!”

Jack rakes his fingers through his hair. It’s still hopeless. “I guess—I mean, I said this over text—but I…I really like you and I’d like to, um, date. You. If you’d like.”

Jack’s anxiety hitches in his throat as he takes in Bitty’s wide, wide eyes. Bitty continues to stare before he softly breathes, “Wow.”

Oh no. Jack begins backtracking immediately, “Don’t feel pressured though! I know I sort of sprung this all on you and a closeted, long-distance relationship isn’t exactly ideal and it’s _definitely_ not fair to you, so just feel free to forget the whole thing, I mean—”

“Oh Jack, honey, no! No no no, I _absolutely_ want to do this with you.”

Jack doesn’t know what to focus on first: the pet name, the fact that Bitty _wants this_ , or the fact that Bitty’s still talking:

“Lord, I just, I know you said all that earlier, but I still…I just wasn’t prepared to hear is straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.” He takes a second to stare off to the side before turning a sheepish smile on Jack. “A part of me still thought I’d dreamed the. The Kiss. And that someone had stolen your phone or you’d been possessed or body-snatched or somethin’.”

His grin is back to the bright, giddy one of before and Jack matches it.

“I could still be those last two things.”

“Oh, hush.”

There’s another lull, but this one’s more comfortable. Jack stares into those soft, brown eyes and idly wonders how he’ll ever be able to keep these feelings from playing all across his face.

Another one of Bitty’s sparkling laughs pulls him from his reverie.

“I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised though,” Bitty giggles, wiping a laugh tear from the corner of his eye, “You bought me a dang _oven_ for my _birthday_ , Jack!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello, first actual fic on AO3. Happy birthday to me :)  
> Thanks for stoppin' by, y'all!  
> (My CP blog is Kent-Parsons-Cowlick on tumblr. Feel free to come yell at me.)


	3. Day 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At dinner, Jack's distracted by more than just his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! It's been a long day, but I still managed to bust out this horrible sketchy thing at 1 am. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

"--Jack?...Jaaack?"

"Oh, sorry, what?"

"Did you spill something on your tie, Jack?"

"What? Oh, no, I was just...thinking, I guess."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am fully convinced that Jack spends most of dinner either fiddling with his tie or his phone, ascribing new meaning to both.


	4. Day 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coach buys Bitty a birthday present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to the folks in omgchatplease (especially Jenrose) for listening to me yell about this idea.  
> I know I'm late again. I know. I do. I swear I'll be more on top of it. Tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow I'll have my life together.  
> This whole idea may have stemmed from me needing to psych myself up for a birthday dinner with my dad tomorrow. Who knows.  
> (Potential content warning for vague references to homophobia and violence at the end.)

So, Coach was not a good gift-giver. One of the perks of marrying Suzanne was that now they could give gifts as a couple and Suzanne, well, she was great at it. So Coach didn’t worry about it too much.

 

Except with Junior. Coach knew he was a bad gift-giver, but it usually wasn’t for lack of effort. In fact, Coach often got so worked up about finding a “perfect” gift—something useful, unique, and personal—that he tended to get overwhelmed with his lack of ideas. Normally, that would be fine, he’d just pleadingly pass the duty to Suzanne, but with Junior…it was painfully obvious that Coach couldn’t even contribute to the gifts for his own son. Oh, the presents Junior got for his birthday or Christmas were _technically_ from the both of his parents, but the glaring fact was that Coach didn’t have a hand in their selection.

 

Not this year, though. No, this year, Coach had been struck with gift-giving inspiration. And frankly, if he was being honest, Coach thought he had hit a home run with this idea, if you’ll excuse the sports metaphor. It was everything Coach was constantly hung up on with presents: it was Useful, Unique, and Personal. What’s more, it was something he and Junior could both relate to _and_ it showed that, for as little as he and Junior spoke (at least, compared to the boy and his mother, good _lord_ ), Coach had been paying attention to what was going on in Junior’s life. So.

 

He needed to call Alicia Zimmermann.

 

Coach wasn’t _exactly_ intimidated by Alicia. Sure, Coach could objectively acknowledge that she was gorgeous but, well, so was his wife.

 

Suck on _that_ , Bob.

 

Anyway, despite Coach not being particularly bothered by Alicia’s supermodel status, his general relationship with phone conversations caused the call to go about as well as he’d expected it to:

 

C: “So, um. Do you think that’s…something…we could do?”

A: "Sure! What's his size!"

C: "Ummmm....small?"

A: "Are you sure? I mean, he's compact, but I hear he's really filled out this season."

C: "Hmmmmmm....."

A: "Plus, people tend to wear them loose."

C: "Huh."

 

Yeah. But, Alicia seemed to take it in stride and get everything set for Coach to receive a package in mid-May and for herself to receive a check. Coach didn’t see the smirk she had when she told her husband or the guffaw Bob had let out in response to hearing the plan. Coach wouldn’t have understood their reactions anyway.

 

0-0-0

 

Junior got home the eighteenth, but Madison schools were still in session, so the Bittles were waiting until the weekend to celebrate when they could have the whole day. Normally, Coach wouldn’t have minded the wait. They did the same thing last year. But now, whenever Coach thought about the neatly wrapped package stashed in the master bedroom’s closet (wrapped by Suzanne; Coach knew his limits), he found himself shifting his weight from foot to foot.

 

Suzanne came up to him as he leaned against the counter, waiting for his coffee, and lightly pecked his nose.

 

“Looks like you got ants in your pants, sweetheart.”

 

Coach only grunted in response, but he hoped Suzanne got what he meant. That he was excited about the prospect of finally, _finally_ having a present for their son that was clearly from him and that he thought the boy would like, but that he was also nervous that he had built it up in his head so much that he was only setting himself up for disappointment.

 

Don’t get him wrong, while Coach certainly had high hopes for this present, he liked to think that they were the grounded kind of hopes that wouldn’t betray him. Coach had no delusions that the gift would magically buff out the rough spots that had formed in their relationship long before Junior stopped calling him “Daddy.” He thought that, best case scenario, Dicky would open it, a dawning realization would spread across his sharpening features, and he’d smile at Coach a little less guardedly than he had been the past few years.

 

Looking at Suzanne, he was pretty sure she understood. She usually did.

 

0-0-0

 

Coach had not been prepared for Dicky’s reaction.

 

The morning of the twenty-first dawned bright and surprisingly cool. For the season, at least.

 

After they’d gone out for breakfast, after Junior helped stick candles in his birthday pie (“You know, most families have birthday _cake_.” “Well then, I guess we are not ‘most families,’ _Richard_.”), after all the cards from Bittles far and near had been opened and passed around, after the annual recitation of Sandra Boynton’s  Birthday Monsters, and after all the typical Suzanne-chosen presents had been opened—some new dress shirts, some nice, moisture-wicking underwear (“god, _mother_!”), a German pastry cookbook, and a sniffle-inducing quilt courtesy of MooMaw—Coach silently slid the last package over to Junior.

 

Dicky had been so happy the past few days—and maybe a little…dazed? But that was neither here nor there—that the look of confusion and trepidation that crossed his face was immediately apparent. Well shit. Coach hadn’t been casual enough.

 

Coach managed a smile but struggled to come up with words that would get that look off of Junior’s face. He was forty-seven years old, dammit. He could talk to his own son.

 

“This one’s, ah…this one’s from me, Junior.”

 

Well that sounded stupidly formal. Coach caught the slight widening of Junior’s eyes. He could read his son well enough to get the silent “O _kayyy…_ ” that was now rolling off him.

 

Coach tried another smile and finally (finally) Dicky was tearing into the wrapping.

 

Coach was not prepared for Dicky’s reaction.

 

He had not been expecting his son to stare silently at the Falconer’s jersey before whipping it around to take in the “Zimmermann” spread across its shoulders. He had not expected the… _fear_ in Junior’s eyes.

 

He looked hunted.

 

Coach shot a pleading look at Suzanne. She looked just as confused as he felt.

 

After a few more moments of silence, Coach cleared his throat. He didn’t know what mistake he had made or what wrong button he had pushed, but he should at least try to find out and, um, fix it?

 

At his sound, Junior jumped a bit in his seat and Coach found himself on the receiving end of that hunted stare. Why did he look so scared?

 

“Ehm. Sorry, um…are—are you not friends with the Zimmermann boy?”

 

Junior blinked at him and his expression cleared a bit. He still took a moment before replying, “Oh. Oh no, I am. I just…sorry. Lost in thought for a second. It really is great, Coach, thank you.” Dicky smiled at him, bright as usual.

 

But no less guarded.

 

(Coach couldn’t have known that for a tense, horrifying moment, Bitty had thought that Coach had somehow found out about him and Jack, that Coach was mocking him, that Coach was forcing him out. Coach couldn’t have known that Bitty was suddenly remembering the time he had accidentally worn Peter Lundquist’s jersey after a locker room mix-up and that some football jackasses had used that as justification for a particularly nasty beating. Coach couldn’t have known that Bitty had thought this was Coach’s bizarre way of telling him to be more like the strong, manly athlete Jack was. Coach couldn’t have known that Bitty was, in fact, more than friends with “the Zimmermann boy.”

 

Coach couldn’t have known that.

 

But Bitty would tell him all about it eventually.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I've projected onto this fic:  
> 1\. Awkward dads who are awkward at interacting with their children.  
> 2\. Waiting to celebrate a child's May birthday until they get home from school.  
> 3\. Waiting until the weekend to celebrate because school and teaching.  
> 4\. Being really bad at gift-giving.  
> 5\. Having someone in my life who is really good at gift-giving (thanks, mom.)  
> 6\. Being bad at talking on the phone.  
> 7\. The recitation of Sandra Boynton's "Birthday Monsters". It's truly a modern classic of birthday-related literature.
> 
> Other things I'd like to note:  
> 1\. The "47 years old" figure comes from Jenrose's headcanon. Bless.  
> 2\. Alicia Zimmermann is a goddess and it's a damn shame we don't know more about her in canon.  
> 3\. The price Alicia asked for the jersey was way lower than the actual price. Again, goddess.  
> 4\. I am 300% sure Coach has a friendly, one-sided rivalry with Bad Bob because he's kind of lowkey jealous that Suzanne had a poster of him when she was a teenager.  
> 5\. If you'd like, I have a CP blog called kent-parsons-cowlick on tumblr. Feel free to come yell at me.


	5. Day 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alicia "Actual Goddess" Zimmermann definitely knows what's up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello I am late.

 

"Has anybody ever told you that you look like Gillian Anderson?"

"Haha, actually, yes! It's quite a compliment, I think!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My CP tumblr is kent-parsons-cowlick. Feel free to stop by!


	6. Day 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack realizes a little late that he maybe should have been jealous the past two years.  
> (ft. A hot n bothered Skype call and some fantasy-laden masturbation. W/ a dash of introspection? idk)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I am embarrassingly behind. Oh well.  
> I need to thank swarleyknight, bittlebunny, jenrose, katai_, and iprotectkennyp in the #epikinkster chat for allowing me to bounce ideas off them.  
> Jealous!Jack is my jam but since #JackDefinitelyKnewLast, I wanted to explore some late-to-the-game jealousy. It was not my intention to create some sort of OwnershipKink!Jack, since I think that would be out of character, so I struggled a bit with the fantasy portion of this. Hopefully I've succeeded (and I think it's fairly mild possessiveness), but if that's not your cup of tea, you've been warned.

Jack stands in front of his bathroom mirror, fiddling with his shirt hem.

On or off?

Jack knows what he _wants_ to do and what he _wants_ to happen. Jack may be slow on the uptake sometimes, but he reasons that Bitty probably has more than a cursory interest in his body. He imagines Bitty popping up in the Skype window with his normal grin and greeting, before letting out a poorly hitched gasp as he takes in Jack’s bare chest.

Again, Jack might be slow, but he isn’t stupid. He knows his chest is one of his best features. He’s worked hard on it, and it’s one of the only thickly muscled parts of his body that isn’t riddled with stretch marks.

So yeah, maybe Jack wants to preen. He maybe wants to see Bitty’s pretty pink blush blot out his sun-beckoned freckles. And sure, maybe he wants Bitty to feel comfortable with going shirtless himself?

You know, because it’s probably sweltering in Madison.

Who is Jack kidding.

Jack’s seen Bitty shirtless—naked—countless times. But still, it would be nice to refresh his memory given their new…context. Jack has _seen_ all of Bitty at some point or another but he’s never really bothered to _look_.

Jack really really wants to look now. But he can wait. He knows that, for all his time spent in locker rooms, Bitty’s fairly modest and Jack would rather do press for a month straight than pressure Bitty or make him uncomfortable. So shirt on it is.

For all of Jack’s planning and overanalyzing; as much as Jack spends a shocking amount of his waking (and sleeping) moments thinking of Bitty; as close as he and Bitty have gotten in their two years at school together, Bitty still manages to surprise him at every turn. Because when their Skype call connects, there’s Bitty. Shirtless. A fan off screen ruffles his hair intermittently. There’s a light sheen of sweat coating the hollow between his collarbones.

Jack isn’t sure whether to thank or curse God right now. Jack really isn’t sure what to do at all actually. All he knows is that he shifts his laptop a bit to ensure that the lap of his pajama pants is sufficiently out of sight. _Crisse_.

Logically, Jack knows a semi between boyfriends— _boyfriends_ (!)—is hardly a problem but still…it’s pretty early in the relationship and he doesn’t want to freak Bitty out.

_…“Freak Bitty out”? What?_

The thought niggles, but Jack pushes it away in favor of focusing on the Skype call. He manages to get through it without mentioning how he would currently like nothing more than to push Bitty back into his sheets and take one of his brown bud nipples between his teeth.

Still, the thought is persistent. Why should Jack assume his arousal would freak Bitty out? Bitty’s an adult who owns a penis himself. Had Jack—?

Had Jack subconsciously assumed Bitty was some sort of blushing virgin?

That could be true, of course, and that would be fine, but it seems a part of Jack’s brain had already denied other possibilities. Which is somewhat ridiculous; Bitty is an attractive, athletic, confident guy who came to Samwell for more than a hockey scholarship.

Unbidden, images of every guy Bitty so much as looked at in the past two years enter Jack’s mind. The fact that he can recall so many speaks volumes about how obliviously invested Jack was in Bitty back when he was still exclusively “Bittle.” Jack’s thoughts linger on the rugby guy Bitty took to Winter Screw and, against his will, he has flashes of the two kissing, of Bitty on his knees, of the rugby guy pushing into Bitty, _God_ , of Bitty pushing into _him_. He remembers Bitty saying it hadn’t been a great date, but Jack is all too familiar with salvaging a mediocre date with sex.

_This is stupid_ , Jack thinks, rolling over to look at his clock’s glowing display. He shouldn’t be lying here in the dark with a guilty boner and a gut heavy with envy over a guy _he is currently dating_. He frowns at the numbers telling him he should have been asleep 20 minutes ago.

Sighing with equal parts relief and frustration, Jack finally allows himself to trace a finger over the stiffness in his pajama pants. It’s not even the first time he’s touched himself thinking about Bitty—those tiny shorts Bits had worn to Spring C had…done a number on Jack—but this is the first time he’s done so with so much of a possessive edge.

Jack supposes he’s making up for lost time by indulging in so much after-the-fact jealousy. It’s not even that Bitty potentially having exes bothers him; it’s just satisfying to imagine wrapping his arm around Bitty and glaring at the barista at Annie’s, or butting in on Bitty’s Screw date, or distracting Bitty from some faceless high school crush.

Okay, so maybe that last one’s a little unrealistic, but—God—Jack can’t shake the feeling that he’s wasted so much time. All that time he spent wrapped in his own head, oblivious to his own heart, when he could have _been with_ Bitty, _belonged_ to Bitty.

He imagines being able to mark Bitty, Bitty marking him. Jack squeezes his thigh with his free hand in an attempt to approximate the feeling. He would squeeze his other thigh, but his other hand is currently…occupied.

Settling into a rhythm now, Jack envisions sucking all sorts of bruises: an obvious, public one just below the soft skin of Bitty’s ear; one in the damp hollow of Bitty’s throat and one edging the light dusting of blonde chest hair that the team would chirp him for; a handful high on Bitty’s firm inner thighs, just for him.

Jack envisions matching ones for himself.

The image of Bitty inside his rugby Screw date morphs to an image of Bitty inside Jack, his compact muscles shifting under his golden skin, hips snapping with the same intensity he brings to the ice, accompanied by a Southern-tinged chorus of nothing but “Jack, Jack, _Jack—”_

Jack hurtles over the edge then, one hand on his dick and one finger inside himself, arching towards the ceiling. He’s still blinking stars from his vision and twitching through the aftershocks when he allows himself to imagine that the come striping his stomach belongs to Bitty, further branding Jack as _his_.

Jack slumps boneless into the mattress, letting his finger slip out of him. He stares at his nondescript ceiling, sleepy and sated, basking in the thought that these fantasies of his—of belonging to someone, of someone belonging to him, of fervent, joyful, stupidly cliché monogamy—they can all be reality. They can all be _his_ reality. With _Bitty_.

Jack’s not sure he deserves it. But with his eyelids as heavy as they are and a mess still on his abs that needs to be cleaned up, it doesn’t seem like a particularly pressing matter.

Jack swings his legs out of bed so he can go grab a towel. He catches sight of his nightstand clock and—

_Crisse_. He was supposed to be asleep 45 minutes ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Just imagine there's a jumpcut in there where Jack grabs lube. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ )  
> (Also, yes, this Jack does get off on the idea of a committed, loving relationship with Bitty. Dude's hella demi, I don't make the rules.)


	7. Day 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like, do you ever turn to a fresh page in your legal pad, and suddenly your brain can’t stop thinking about fucking Jack Laurent Zimmermann’s chest hair?

 

//*~Bitty Vision~*//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what Jack's signature might look like, but it definitely doesn't look like this!


End file.
